White Lightnin’

Vice Films

Madman

R4 DVD

This film is not, as you may suppose, about moonshine running. It is a very bleak film about the effects of drugs on a young mind and the influences of simplistic religion on that mind. The combination can only lead to trouble.

Young Jesse is an uneducated backwoods kid who finds very early that he can get a high by sniffing petrol or lighter fluid. This is called “huffing”. As his brain becomes affected he gradually deteriorates until he can’t tell the difference between right and wrong and doesn’t really care. His Daddy tries his best but he is also a simple backwoodsman and he just can’t handle the job. One person who does have some influence on Jesse is a local fire-and-brimstone hokus preacher who has a very simplistic if scrambled view of the Bible and the Lord’s Will, but when Jesse is high on fumes even the fear of the Lord holds no terrors for him.

Inevitably Jesse finishes up in juvenile prison then in an adult prison. Each time he is let out he can “feel the Devil moving in my blood” and will commit another crime of violence. The line between rationality and violence is very, very thin. In a last desperate attempt to teach Jesse something useful his Daddy has taught him the only talent he has – to dance a form of tap / shuffle popular mong the rednecks for its deft footwork. Even that can’t keep Jesse out of trouble, though, and he finishes up back in prison. While he is inside his Daddy is murdered by a vicious pair of local rednecks. While the idea of vengeance is appealing, Jesse is clean when he leaves prison and he remembers the preacher’s teachings about leaving retribution to Jesus. He teams up with his Daddy’s old guitar player and starts dancing for money in the bars of the area. They are reasonably popular but the old demon is still lurking in his mind. One night he is heckled by a customer and beats the man savagely with a heavy ashtray. His guitar player drives off and leaves him to his fate.

Jesse’s idea is to hijack a car to get him home. He gets a lift in a car driven by a lady he nicknames Priscilla. Although she is married she leaves her husband and kids to live with him. In his own simple style he rates her as “the best pussy I ever had. The cleanest too”. His life could be improving but not for long.

One of his friends has just been let out of prison, and is killed by the same rednecks who killed his father. He snaps and decides to take revenge, the preacher’s teachings forgotten. Priscilla, sensing the impending blowup, leaves him. The revenge on the rednecks is cruel and bloody and in his twisted mind they have also killed Priscilla. He accidentally kills a sheriff’s deputy who is investigating then realises he must go on the run. There is an old cabin way back in the woods where the preacher lives, if he is still alive.

Jesse makes his way to the cabin and is berated by the preacher for taking the Lord’s work unto himself. Or is it all in Jesse’s by now completely irrational mind? There is only one way to make amends to Jesus. Possibly inspired by “if thy hand offends thee, cut it off” he goes into a frenzy of self-mutilation and quasi-religious fervour.

The story is filmed in black and white with only occasional flashes of muted colour that serve to highlight the few good moments in Jesse’s tortured life. The problems of petrol sniffing are current and prevalent in many outback villages in Australia as well as other countries. Fundamentalist religions that draw on and emphasise selected parts of the scriptures and influence young minds are an evil that seems to be increasing, and not only among the deep-South Christians. Is there any way out of this? Don’t look to this film for help.

The character acting is brilliant, especially Ivan Nedarevic as the young truculent Jesse. Since the film is narrated by Jesse it needs a strong credible script to carry it off. It works. Only briefly does offer any hope for a better life, but there is always the devil in Jesse waiting to break through.

Image © UK Film Council / Mountain Productions Limited 2008

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